The larger capacity drives are still a lot more expensive in 2.5 and nothing larger than 2TB is even available. I really hope they don't move to 2.5 drives. I have absolutely no problem with the current form factor and power requirements.

The 1TB is a dollar more than the 3.5 version on Amazon and both are WD AvGP drives. The only reason for 2.5 would be the smaller form factor.

As I said in my post, My thinking is the P6 in the larger form factor uses the 3.5 for at least the XL model.

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If this new 4 tuner unit is going to be the new bottom line option then they need to make it as cheap as possible. If they can't get it down to at least $150 then they are putting themselves in a tough spot. I expect the 4 tuner to be as cheap as possible. If they can save a few bucks by squeezing it into a smaller case and using a wall wart instead of a real power supply, then that's what they'll do. The 6 tuner will likely be more like what we're use to as it will be more of a "premium" option. Although I don't expect it to cost much more, if anything, then the current gen XL4. They're already having trouble moving units at the current price points, if they go much higher they're going to price themselves out of the market.

The 1TB is a dollar more than the 3.5 version on Amazon and both are WD AvGP drives. The only reason for 2.5 would be the smaller form factor.

As I said in my post, My thinking is the P6 in the larger form factor uses the 3.5 for at least the XL model.

If we put aside the cost factor, except that 2.5" drives have come down to near 3.5" pricing, if TiVo were to start using them, that sure would make all the DIY drive upgrading much more difficult, and force us to buy a "Premium" model, if we want a huge (internal) drive capacity.

Think about it... If TiVo cuts a great pricing deal on 2.5" drives, with a drive manufacturer, and then only uses the 3.5" in the most expensive model, then they could make it no so easy for people to buy the cheapest model, and just drop in a bigger drive...

I've been wondering how long it would take for TiVo to get more ballsy, and release a product that isn't upgrade friendly. If they make it that way, by design, we're somewhat screwed. I think they likely never expected anybody to come up with a way to expand a Premiere drive. Once it was possible, they couldn't really just deactivate the people who upgraded, as a retroactive measure, without p'ing a lot of paying customers off...

It's a sad and scary thing to think of, but they COULD do it. It's their product. As Dan203 said, the non-premium models could even have wall-wart power supplies.

If we put aside the cost factor, except that 2.5" drives have come down to near 3.5" pricing, if TiVo were to start using them, that sure would make all the DIY drive upgrading much more difficult, and force us to buy a "Premium" model, if we want a huge (internal) drive capacity.

Think about it... If TiVo cuts a great pricing deal on 2.5" drives, with a drive manufacturer, and then only uses the 3.5" in the most expensive model, then they could make it no so easy for people to buy the cheapest model, and just drop in a bigger drive...

I've been wondering how long it would take for TiVo to get more ballsy, and release a product that isn't upgrade friendly. If they make it that way, by design, we're somewhat screwed. I think they likely never expected anybody to come up with a way to expand a Premiere drive. Once it was possible, they couldn't really just deactivate the people who upgraded, as a retroactive measure, without p'ing a lot of paying customers off...

It's a sad and scary thing to think of, but they COULD do it. It's their product. As Dan203 said, the non-premium models could even have wall-wart power supplies.

Correct as I said yesterday. They do make 2TB 2.5 drives now though but at a greater cost. They don't make the AVGP model though past 1TB.

EDIT: Just thought of this also. If TiVo opted for a 2.5 drive it would push those who want to upgrade to the XL model. While you might still be able to upgrade the drive, you will be potentially limited on the space so you might be stuck with 2.5 drives. The largest 2.5 drive currently from WD in the AV model is 1TB since most likely due to the platter size. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/av/

This could mean the end of the 2TB 4XL unless they truly have space for a 3.5 but they opted to use a 2.5 drive. Cooling could potentially be an issue with a larger drive.

I don't necessarily think TiVo is doing this to cut out upgrades, but more for the smaller form factor. It would also limit them from making a XL model in the 4 tuner model.

This is all of course assuming it even has a smaller 2.5 drive. It is tough to tell dimensions by a screen shot. From a cost perspective it doesn't make sense to buy 2.5 drives for the 4 tuner and 3.5 drives for the 6 tuner unless they have different storage. I could see 500GB for the 4 tuner and 1TB for the 6 tuner base and then 2TB for the 4XL and 3TB for the 6XL.

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Only 5 simultaneous streams (presumably 4 write one read) though. Wouldn't work in our hypothesized 6-tuner Tivo. Unless the 4- and 6-tuner TiVos are going to have different form factors I don't see the point of using 2.5" drives.

I've worked with desktop and laptop PCs over the last decade, in hundreds to nearly a thousand, and I've had way more 2.5" drives fail with absolutely zero warning as compared to 3.5" drives. (Yes, the absolute number of failures is still small.) I'm including some small form-factor desktops with 2.5" drives and many laptops that never leave the office. Just saying that I frequently see anomalies out of the 3.5" drives in advance of a failure, but almost never with the 2.5" drives. (Yes, it's also anecdotal.)

Let's just say for a number of reasons I far prefer 3.5" drives, except if portability is key.

Only 5 simultaneous streams (presumably 4 write one read) though. Wouldn't work in our hypothesized 6-tuner Tivo. Unless the 4- and 6-tuner TiVos are going to have different form factors I don't see the point of using 2.5" drives.

Which is exactly what Dave Zatz's update says that got us on the subject of the 2.5 drives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davezatz

A second vector confirms an earlier nugget I received and I feel relatively confident in saying the incoming 4-tuner unit will feature a smaller form factor than the 6-tuner or Premiere, but not trapezoidal like the Mini.

Only 5 simultaneous streams (presumably 4 write one read) though. Wouldn't work in our hypothesized 6-tuner Tivo. Unless the 4- and 6-tuner TiVos are going to have different form factors I don't see the point of using 2.5" drives.

I think that's the plan. The 4 tuner unit would be a smaller form factor box while the 6 tuner would be similar in size to the current Premiere units.

Although the drive would need to support more then 5 streams. In addition to recording 4 and playing back 1 locally it also needs to support playback to 3 external devices such as a Mini or Stream and one each, incoming and outgoing, MRV streams. So 9 total streams. Or at least that's what the current units do. And the 6 tuner will need to support at least 11.

Although TiVo supports a max bitrate of 25Mbps, which is only 3.125MB per second, andost hard drives can handle a sustained read/write speed of at least 50MB per second so it shouldn't be a problem at all.

Native WiFi on the box will be good, so long as TiVo doesn't get stupidly cheap and not have 11n capability and WiFi Protected Setup. Fewer wires is good, and I have a (possibly irrational) dislike of MOCA (vs 1G Ethernet).

Although TiVo supports a max bitrate of 25Mbps, which is only 3.125MB per second, andost hard drives can handle a sustained read/write speed of at least 50MB per second so it shouldn't be a problem at all.

It could be. First of all, 50 MBps reads are no problem, but writes are another matter. I rarely see sustained 50 MBps writes to a single spindle on consumer quality drives. Secondly, 28+ MBps is getting a little close for comfort to the 50 MBps hypothetical for real-time transfers. Thirdly, the sustained throughput is not the most important metric, here. It is the number of IOPS and the random seek rate that rear their ugly heads when talking about multiple simultaneous reads and writes.

Only 5 simultaneous streams (presumably 4 write one read) though. Wouldn't work in our hypothesized 6-tuner Tivo. Unless the 4- and 6-tuner TiVos are going to have different form factors I don't see the point of using 2.5" drives.

Only five simultaneous HD video streams?? That seems rather low? I've used 2.5 inch drives in the past that could handle reading/writing more HD streams than that.

It could be. First of all, 50 MBps reads are no problem, but writes are another matter. I rarely see sustained 50 MBps writes to a single spindle on consumer quality drives. Secondly, 28+ MBps is getting a little close for comfort to the 50 MBps hypothetical for real-time transfers. Thirdly, the sustained throughput is not the most important metric, here. It is the number of IOPS and the random seek rate that rear their ugly heads when talking about multiple simultaneous reads and writes.

What kind of drives are you using? The single platter 1TB drives have zero issues sustaining 100MB/s write speeds.

It could be. First of all, 50 MBps reads are no problem, but writes are another matter. I rarely see sustained 50 MBps writes to a single spindle on consumer quality drives. Secondly, 28+ MBps is getting a little close for comfort to the 50 MBps hypothetical for real-time transfers. Thirdly, the sustained throughput is not the most important metric, here. It is the number of IOPS and the random seek rate that rear their ugly heads when talking about multiple simultaneous reads and writes.

The current gen units do it just fine and they are using 5400 RPM drives. I can't imagine that a 2.5" drive would be any slower. In fact it would probably be slightly faster since it probably only has 1 platter instead of two.

Native WiFi on the box will be good, so long as TiVo doesn't get stupidly cheap and not have 11n capability and WiFi Protected Setup. Fewer wires is good, and I have a (possibly irrational) dislike of MOCA (vs 1G Ethernet).

I'm betting the Wifi will only be supported for the internet leg of the connection and you'll have to use MoCa or Ethernet for streaming. I think the intended setup will be a single TiVo in your main room, either 4 or 6 tuners, with Minis spread around the house for viewing in other rooms. The Minis will connect to the TiVo via MoCa or Ethernet and then the TiVo will bridge that connection to WiFi for internet access.

They could accomplish this pretty easily by simply blocking the UDP discovery protocol on the WiFi leg of the network. If the TiVo's can't see each other via WiFi then you wont be able to use it for streaming. Even 802.11n is not fast enough to support the 3 simultaneous streams that are possible with a TiVo.

It's also possible that the WiFi could be used as a bridge in the other direction allowing a device like an iPad connect to the TiVo to get on the local network. This might be good for people with wired networks that want to use the built in Stream capabilities it's rumored to have.

The current gen units do it just fine and they are using 5400 RPM drives. I can't imagine that a 2.5" drive would be any slower. In fact it would probably be slightly faster since it probably only has 1 platter instead of two.

The 3.5 AV-GP is rated for 12 streams over 5 for the 2.5 drive. It has a smaller buffer also not sure if that matters any.

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If TiVo releases a 4 TB capacity TiVo Series 5 with six tuners, I'm in on buying one!

Actually, I am not sure about the drive size, but I do expect that they have extended the size limitation cap of the current units. Current max is 2 TB, so I expect to see at least 3 TB option. Hopefully upgradable to 4

If TiVo releases a 4 TB capacity TiVo Series 5 with six tuners, I'm in on buying one!

I doubt it would be 4TBs. It will more than likely be 3TB. The 3TB drives cost around the same as the 2TB did when they released the Elite. WD makes a 3TB drive in the same line that TiVo has used in the past but not a 4TB drive yet.

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I would prefer 4TB but 3TB will do. Plus 4TB drives are too expensive still. There is no way though that I would get a six tuner box with only 2TB of storage. It would not be enough storage for me. Or I'd have to start using TiVo Desktop more often again.
I haven't used TiVo Desktop very much since getting two of the 2TB Elite TiVos.